


Homesickness

by Shatteeran



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: 3+1 Things, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, But they're barely in it, Fluff, Homesick!Niall, Homesickness, M/M, Songfic, Zayn's barely in it, but not really, i guess, larry if you squint, protective!liam
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-11
Updated: 2016-07-11
Packaged: 2018-07-23 01:26:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7461174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shatteeran/pseuds/Shatteeran
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I guess it’s difficult for anyone to imagine Nialler sad. But like everyone else, he has his moments.<br/>--<br/>Or the one where Liam watches and comforts Niall every time he is homesick and fall head over heels for him along the way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Homesickness

**Author's Note:**

> Well, it all started with the end, with this dialog I really liked and I wanted a back story to contextualize.  
> It was supposed to be short and sweet...
> 
> I hope it's sweet? (Oopsies).
> 
> There's a companion piece to this called "All of Me Loves All of You". It's fully-written and takes things from Niall's point of view on a completely different aspect of their shared lives. I'll update some time later this week, I swear (but now I need to sleep).
> 
> Also tumblr (shatteeran.tumblr.com)!

**1.**

I guess it’s difficult for anyone to imagine Nialler sad. But like everyone else, he has his moments. The first time I caught him in an unusual mood, I was running up to our shared bedroom at Camp, eager to finally enjoy some peace and quiet. But here he was, to my dismay. He waved at me half-heartedly and my disappointment subsided to give some space to another feeling, one I was going to get increasingly accustomed to in the following months. I stared at the boy, huddled up behind his comforter, hidden from the world up until his button nose. Hard to believe that, barely then minutes ago, the same Irish kid was strumming his guitar and making a large group of stressed out adults and teenagers sing along with him cheerful tunes. Right in the middle of a singing talent show! But, even then, there was more to my Nialler than met the eye.

“What’s up, mate?”, I asked awkwardly, pretending to search my luggage for a book we both knew laid under my pillow. A mess of dirty blonde hair and deep blue eyes poked over his blanket fort. I felt this stare searching my face, looking – I suppose – for a reason to trust me.

“Don’t tell anyone”, he warned. “I’m homesick. I’d never really gone far from home on my own before.”

To this day, I am not sure what compelled me to sit next to him on the bed: we were strangers – rivals is that we were, to be perfectly honest.

“Me too”, I whispered as we both found new interest for the white wall facing us. “Don’t tell anyone”, I repeated like a promise we’d just made. “But this year is my last shot. I’ll be over for good when they kick me out.”

“But you’re so good”, he whispered back, glancing up at me. And again, the strange feeling vibrated in my chest.

“Well”, I said. “We just need to bring some Ireland to you.” I jumped off the bed and turned towards him, gingerly offering my best impression of an Irish accent: « Oy lad! Ya need some music and craic! Let’s dance, my leprechaun friend!”

And I launched myself into a very dynamic Irish jig. Though, for the record, I probably looked more like a seizing baby duck. No more than ten seconds later, his pillow landed on my face.

“Shut up!”, he managed, between two of his soon-to-be famous belly laughs. I grinned back at him, cheeks flushed with the effort. 

It was the first time I made a fool of myself for Niall to cure his homesickness.

 

 

**2.**

It happened again as our adventures took us farther and further away from our families and our homes. But, we were a lot more acquainted with one another and the other lads by then. As such, we eased into a routine where we occasionally cured the other’s sadness. But none of these times made such an impression on me as the first time as I had comforted him. It was obvious to the whole world that the protectiveness I nurtured towards Niall was not mine to keep, anyone who got to spend two minutes around him ending up irreversibly… charmed. Until one particular afternoon.

We were touring and the road had been uncharacteristically quiet in the tour bus. Zayn was asleep in the couch and Larry had claimed the other tour bus at the previous stop, so it didn’t come out as a surprise when my “Where’s Niall?” went unanswered. My instinct ended up locating him in one of the top bunk, the only indication of his presence the drawn curtain around it.

“Nialler?”, I asked softly, before listening intently.

A shuffle. A sniff.

“It’s me”, I said stupidly as I peeked inside.

“Li”, he replied with a broken voice, blinking owlishly at the light, thus drawing attention to the shining tear tracks on his cheeks.

“Homesick, heh?” My fingers found their way in his hair. I smiled as his whole body shuddered.

“Theo’s sick; and Greg worries; and I can’t do anything.”, he lamented.

“But Ni’, there is nothing you could do, even if you were there.”, I reasoned as I climbed up to lay down next to him. He instantly buried his face in my shirt. For a moment, both our throats were constricted, his with grief, mine with stupor.

“But it’s home. I’d just be there and feel better just knowing I’m around, you know? But I’m selfish and I’m not.”

I hugged him and rolled us over so his head rested on my chest.

“I know, Ni’? But it is not selfish to live your life. And it is not to sometimes be sad that your path leads you away from home either. And if you don’t believe me, think about all the fans who would be sad if you were not singing with us tonight. Starting with Harry, Louis and Zayn.”

“And you?”, he asked, raising his head a little to meet my eyes, and making the vibrating feeling go wild. I hummed in his hair.

“Nah, not me. If you’re not on that stage tonight, then I won’t be either. I’ll be wherever you are instead.” He sighed against me. I squeezed him tighter.

“With you”, I added.

“With me”, he echoed, before he soon fell asleep.

 

 

**3.**

Cuddles with Niall became a regular feature after that episode. While it eased some of his melancholic times, the knowledge of the uniqueness of my methods soothed the possessive streak I was still denying I had developed. Admittedly, we all shared hugs and touches quite often on stage and to have a laugh. But it was who we turned to in moments of sadness and needs that mattered. Or, at least, that was what I kept repeating myself whenever he went goofing around with Louis or chilling with Zayn. Life made it that it took our next tour to change our habits once more. We all had grown a bit more confident, in our voices, our fame and our very busy lives. Nevertheless, the days in the US, as we were traveling to our next concert, resembled the ones of the previous year. Which meant I fully expected it the next time Niall’s mood started to turn sour. 

Instead of pulling him into the warmth of my arms, I forced myself and led him to what you could call our “playroom”: the sanctified area of the bus reserved for loud activities: play games – board or videos -, watch the telly, practice music or singing, skype with friends and family, you name it. Asking permission with a glance, I picked up his guitar from its case in the corner and settled on one of the chairs. He stood still, with a half-confused, half-expectant look.

“I know how you feel, Ni’. You know. It’s a feeling we are accustomed to, you could say. Familiar enough that I thought… maybe… we could, if you want, sing about it instead of talking?”

The corner of his mouth twitched. “You don’t even play the guitar.”

I strummed the chords twice while playing a random note I had seen him practice. To my surprise, he started to sing.

“ **Been a lot of places,**

 **I’ve been all around the world.** ” 

He stopped as brutally as he had begun. I held his gaze and strummed the chords once more, emphatically. I continued:

“ **Seen a lot faces…** ” 

He bumped the middle of my eyebrows, scrunched up with concentration, stole the guitar away from my disgruntled grasp, and slowly worked up a melody he could sing along to, before he went on:

“ **… But never forgot who I was.** ” 

I smiled to myself as I drank in the sight of the most important person in my life, cheering himself up through music, as I had promised him two years before, as he had always been capable of without realizing. This time was the last he would need me for comfort. The loop was closed. I stood up, let my hands brush the armrest, my eyes caress his focused pout, my feet drag against the navy blue carpet, and breathed in, relishing in the shared intimacy. I finally made to exit the room.

The music stopped. His fingers shot to grab my wrist.

“Stay”, he said, his eyes strained on the notepad he had written the lyrics on.

I took my seat on the chair next to him.

“With you.” 

 

 

 

**+1**

Naturally, _Don’t Forget Where We Belong_ quickly became one of the hits of our next album and tour. But it only took the first concert for it to become my all-time favorite song. From then on, I couldn’t hear Niall sing the lyrics without being reminded of the afternoon of its creation: the silence, comfortable and comforting; how the tip of my fingers tingled with the desire to touch, the fiery warmth finally exploding in my chest, stomach, throat as the vibrations ripped through my body, the stillness of the instant as the shadows cast upon Niall’s face danced to the rhythm of his voice as he nodded along to the music. Each time he sang brought me back to the second I had fallen over the edge, completely in love with him. And each time, I let myself think he sang for me; each time, my heart answered to the chorus those same two words, our promise, our secret.

In the course of events, these ecstatic minutes of realization were layered with the easy-going cheerfulness of Niall’s own genuinely likeable character (and if Miss Perry hadn’t been right about that one, I don’t know who has ever been), which tragically meant that the more enamored I got with him, the more convinced I was of the unrequitedness of my affections. Over the course of this summer, my biggest joy became my most enduring source of pain. Like an addict, I dreamt of our next private moment of deeper connection. I kept on rewriting in my mind the words I’d whisper to soothe him, picturing over and over again the lingering movement of my palm on his cheek revealing the intensity of the love I harbored, inebriated myself with the memory of the smell of his skin, of the new undertones I would get to capture with a brush of my lips on his forehead next time. 

“Next time”, I kept muttering to myself when I watched him flirt from afar, laughing out loud. Or when he would suddenly turn towards me, crinkles around his eyelids, grin illuminating his face. Next time. I’ll be bolder. Next time… 

It never came. Airports succeeded to stadiums; sleepless nights and days of slumber took turn; meet & greets switched to interviews. And not once Niall showed a sign of being nostalgic, depressed or even slightly put out. And while my heart bled with how much I missed him, while my hands clutched over nothing, incapable of grasping the essence of our relationship, Niall was simply having the time of his life. I held on, hurt and frustrated, until the night of our last concert.

Until tonight.

But tomorrow afternoon, we will all be flying back home for a couple of weeks before coming back together to do it all over again. And I’m not sure I have it in me to go through a season without… something. Anything. So I grab him and my courage with both hands as soon as we exit the stage. We can still hear the thunder of the audience applauding our performance. The night is chilly, especially with the cool sweat licking down my spine; the air smells like metal and projector-burnt dust. My eyes are slowly getting accustomed to the darkness; behind Niall I can still distinguish the pretentious oversized _One Direction_ logo on the stage screen.

“Yeah, Li’?”, he asks, his face still red with excitement and exertion.

In spite of my best efforts, my eyes betray me and rake down his too-big white tank top, stuck to his skin with perspiration, his skinny black jean-clad chicken legs, trembling; and back up, along his hands and arms which seem bigger and steadier than ever as he himself has grown as a man, the shine of his lips as he licks them unconsciously, parched as we always are after the show, the mess of his hair pointing at every angle. His eyes. Happy beyond anything I’ve ever seen. Awaiting some kind of explanation for my behavior. Blue.

I love you.

“You have not been homesick at all, this tour, haven’t you?”, is all I can get out. Every call of my body is screaming, yearning. I freeze, reign them in.

“That’s what’s been bothering you?”, he discards with a chuckle. “Of course not, it’s like I bring home with me, when I have you”, he explains, serious again.

I study his expression, in quest of another sense to make of his words, willing another meaning to emerge from his answer. He simply shrugs and pecks my lips, before taking the direction of our dressing rooms.

I remain, stiff, stunned, dumbstruck.

He turns back, as suddenly as he’d left, lips stretched into a smile he cannot seem to contain. He holds his hand out, eyes glinting with cheerfulness.

 

“With me?”

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi on tumblr (shatteeran.tumblr.com).  
> I mean if you like... I thought... maybe... Well! *retreating slowly*


End file.
